By KIM LUNMAN
With a report from Kevin Cox
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
– Page A4
OTTAWA -- Thousands
paid tribute yesterday to Canadian soldiers who
sacrificed their lives in war decades ago, and to
those who died this year in the war against terrorism,
at Remembrance Day services across the country.
But amid the poppies and
pageantry was a strong antiwar sentiment as the
spectre of a possible war led by the United States
against Iraq hung over the ceremonies.
"This is a day of remembering
the ones who didn't come back," said Marion Larkman,
who placed a wreath for Métis soldiers at the National
War Memorial in Ottawa as thousands of spectators
lined the streets to watch the service.
Ms. Larkman, 76, was among
the first Canadian women to enlist to fight in the
Second World War in 1939. She was working on a
trapline near Peterborough, Ont., with her father when
she signed up as an army cook at age 15.
Like many war veterans
yesterday, she expressed concern about future
conflicts since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11,
2001. "I'm just hoping there isn't another war. If
there is, [President George W.] Bush should be on his
own."
After a wreath-laying
ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery near
Washington yesterday, Mr. Bush repeated his vow that
Saddam Hussein will disarm voluntarily or the United
States will disarm him by force. Earlier yesterday,
during a White House ceremony for veterans, he said
Mr. Hussein could supply weapons of mass destruction
to terrorists.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien,
who attended the Ottawa service with his wife, Aline,
and shook hands with some of the hundreds of veterans
there, has not said whether Canada would join a war
against Iraq.
"Right now, to be honest with
you, I'd be scared of it," said Second World War
veteran Adam Kedrosky, 84, of Renfrew, Ont. "It'd be
another Vietnam."
Spectators huddled under
umbrellas on a rainy morning in the capital to
remember those who died in the First World War, the
Second World War and the Korean War. But it was also
the first time since the Korean War that Canadians
paid tribute at Remembrance Day ceremonies to their
own soldiers killed in a combat zone.
The ceremonies commemorated
the deaths of the four Canadians killed in Afghanistan
in April -- Corporal Ainsworth Dyer, Sergeant Marc
Léger and Privates Richard Green and Nathan Smith, all
from the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry.
The members of the Princess Patricia's were also
honoured earlier at a ceremony in Edmonton.
Doreen Coolen, mother of Pte.
Green, was chosen as this year's National Silver (Memorial)
Cross Mother by the Royal Canadian Legion. She
represented all Canadian mothers who have lost a child
in war.
"I think with what's going on
in the world, so much trouble and fighting, it makes
you sad," said Frank Gill, 82, a Second World War
veteran from Toronto who was in Ottawa for the
ceremony.
Persian Gulf war veteran
Louis Lamarre, 37, confined to a wheelchair because of
multiple sclerosis he believes is linked to exposure
to toxic gas used in the conflict, laid a gas mask
along with the wreaths at the National War Memorial.
Sean Bruyea, 38, a retired
captain who served in the Persian Gulf war, said about
4,500 veterans of that conflict have not been properly
recognized and compensated by the Canadian government.
"They don't want to call us
war veterans," said Mr. Bruyea, who added that he has
not been fully compensated for war-related illness,
including memory loss, fatigue and joint pain. "We
fully expected to die, but we came back with
life-threatening illnesses."
The ceremony in Ottawa
included a veterans parade, singing by the Central
Children's Choir of Ottawa and a salute by
Governor-General Adrienne Clarkson. It also included
the singing of God Save the Queen,wreath laying,
a flypast and a 21-gun salute.
In St. John's, an
unidentified man grabbed the microphone at the
downtown Remembrance Day service and denounced the
late Joseph Smallwood for bringing Newfoundland and
Labrador into Confederation in 1949.
"When they came back from the
war [in 1945-46] we had a new leader, Joseph R.
Smallwood, and Joseph R. Smallwood gave Newfoundland
and Labrador, our own nation, to Canada," he said. "In
World War I and World War II they didn't go out and
fight for the country of Canada. They fought for the
nation of Newfoundland and Labrador."
When a policeman approached
him, the man gave up the microphone after a brief
protest. No charges were laid.
In Manitoba,
Lieutenant-Governor Peter Liba's wife, Shirley,
participated in a Remembrance Day event, while Quebec
Premier Bernard Landry and Bloc Québécois Leader
Gilles Duceppe took part in a ceremony in Montreal. In
Toronto, the Toronto Stock Exchange ceased trading for
one minute at 11 a.m.
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